


Museum Dates

by sendyouphotosinthepost



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Museum dates, Second years, Tsukishima Kei Likes Dinosaurs, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sendyouphotosinthepost/pseuds/sendyouphotosinthepost
Summary: Yamaguchi likes to refer to Kei as emotionally constipated. Kei disagrees. It’s not his fault that 95% of the emotions he feels are annoyance. When you’re surrounded by volleyball idiots like he is daily what other option is there?Besides, Kei has friends. Yamaguchi, Kuroo, Akiteru, and most surprisingly, Hinata.Or; Kei and Hinata go on museum dates, and Kei is still the most emotionally constipated man you'll ever meet.
Relationships: (Referenced) Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 2
Kudos: 200





	Museum Dates

Yamaguchi likes to refer to Kei as emotionally constipated. Kei disagrees. It’s not his fault that 95% of the emotions he feels are annoyance. When you’re surrounded by volleyball idiots like he is daily what other option is there?

Besides, Kei feels other emotions, even if he prefers he didn’t. He’s started to feel love for volleyball again. It was hard, and he was pretty shit, but he wants to play more. He wants to win games so that they could play more. He even begrudgingly enjoys spending time with his teammates and other volleyball friends.

Kageyama is a complete lost cause. Kei can’t imagine him ever having a single thought outside of volleyball. But he’s started to spend time with the others. Studying in the library with Yachi, who works hard and motivates him to do so too.She is also silent and respectful of his complete hatred of other humans whilst he’s trying to work.

He also sometimes visits Kuroo on the weekends when his parents are in Tokyo for work events. Kuroo is a shit, and Kei regrets going to see him within the first five minutes; sooner if Bokuto is there; but he also knows that very few people understand him on the same visceral level as Kuroo does. Even if that’s the main reason he hates Kuroo sometimes.

What surprises him most is how much time he spends with Hinata. It begins easily enough, with Kei inviting Yamaguchi to go to a museum with him. Yamaguchi then invites Yachi, and Kei doesn’t mind because he’s tired of hearing his best friend pine over her. But then she invites Hinata.

Kei, even on his cruelest of days, cannot find it in him to be mean to Yachi. Especially not when that would bring forth Yamaguchi’s wrath. So Hinata joins them, and Kei wonders if it’s too late to hand in his leave to the volleyball team and see none of them ever again.

Hinata in a museum is like a child. He bounces around, pressing his face against the glass of exhibits and reaching out to touch things before jerking his hand back when he sees the glares Kei is giving him. Because, in Yamaguchi’s incredible plan to have a romantic date with Yachi, all babysitters for Hinata are gone. All but himself.

“You know, just because none of the animals in here are alive doesn’t mean you need to act like one,” Kei bites out as they enter the Animal Kingdom where Hinata squawks like a bird at seeing all the animals.

“Stupidshima!” Hinata exclaims, getting impossibly louder and drawing the gaze of the people closest to them. Kei starts to think of how he’ll talk himself out of being banned from the building when they inevitably kick Hinata out. “How can you not be excited by all this!” He swings his arms around in a circle, and Kei looks longingly towards the next room over. The one with the dinosaurs. He can’t imagine they’ll ever get there at this rate. “How will they know we appreciate them if we don’t tell them Idiotshima!” Hinata adds, moving to look at the stuffed chimpanzees curled around a tall tree branch. Kei wonders if he’s jealous of how high up they are.

“I don’t want to blow your tiny brain, but they know nothing. They’re stuffed, Shrimpy. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that?” Kei smirks down at the other boy who looks up at him in indignation.

“I know that!” He huffs, turning to move towards the ‘Big Cats’ exhibit, his body almost vibrating with a need to show off his excitement. “Besides, why did you even want to come here if you don’t like all the stuff?”

“The stuff is called exhibits, and just because I don’t show my appreciation by screaming at them doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy them. There’s a reason I haven’t left you here to get lost whilst I escape.” That reasons name is Yamaguchi. The man who has far too much dirt on Kei for him to leave Hinata here alone. Though he’s seriously considering whether it would be worth facing Yamaguchi’s wrath as Hinata kneels down so he can look the tiger cubs in the eye. 

“You don’t need to kneel, you were already the same height you know.” Kei can’t help it, he needs to get a reaction out of Hinata. To wipe the look of awe off of his face. It was the look he gave when he saw someone make a good play, or when one of his senpais complimented him. It was so genuine that it pissed Kei off.

Hinata responds as expected, looking up to glare at Kei with a muttering of “Stupidshima.” Kei rolls his eyes at the bastardisation of his name, trying to nudge Hinata off balance with his foot, before quickly moving to look at the display of eagles in the centre of the room. He pretends not to know Hinata as the boy lets out a high-pitched sound and tries to steady himself. Once he’s stood back up, the other boy moves to stand next to Kei, because Kei cannot look at a single display on his own without having the other boy interrupt him.

“It’s stupid,” Hinata begins, and Kei wonders briefly if Hinata is self-aware enough being viewing something else as stupid. “They give Shiratorizawa a whole section but I see no crows anywhere!” The smaller boy whines and Kei pushes away the smile threatening to curl his lips as he rolls his eyes instead.

“You know, there are things that exist outside of your volleyball career?”

“I know that, Stingyshima! I’m just making a point.”

“That point being that they should create a section here just for you?” Hinata nods. “Well, they already have one of those.” Hinatas eyebrows furrow in confusion, and he’s about to open his mouth when Kei points back towards the monkeys and a group of stuff orangutans. “Orange, clingy, only able to communicate with animal noises. You’re a perfect match,” he sneers, unable to deny the smirk on his face as he watches the waves of confusion, understanding and finally annoyance wash over Hinata’s face. He’s so easy to rile up that Kei almost finds it boring, but still when Hinata is looking at him with such anger it’s almost worth it.

“Well, you’re lucky there're no giraffes here otherwise they’d get you mixed up and never let you leave!” Hinata almost shouts back, sticking out his tongue at Kei, making him wonder once again when he became a babysitter. Still, as a babysitter, Kei can see the security guard moving to approach them.

It’s most likely to tell Hinata to shut up. Kei doesn’t want to risk anything more serious happening though, and so he places his hand on Hinata’s back, guiding him through to the next exhibit along. Which is the main reason that this is one of Kei’s favourite museums. The dinosaur exhibit.

Kei moves away from Hinata as soon as they are in the hall, making his way around the room as he always does. Starting by looking at the loose bones that represent some of the rarest dinosaurs, one’s that they have such little proof of that there are only a few complete skeletons found across the world. He likes these a lot. Likes the idea that underneath us at all times could be something new. Something undiscovered that could change the entire way we view the past. That’s what he finds so interesting about history. How even though everything is gone, and nothing can be changed, human perception of what happened can be changed by finding new evidence.

“So this is what you came here for. You know, I thought Yamaguchi was teasing when he said we should have gotten you a dinosaur themed cake for your birthday last year,” Hinata says, startling Kei a little. He doesn’t expect the other boy to be there. He imagines him being both in awe of and intimated by the full skeletons of the dinosaurs. The raptors sat in the back corner or the gigantic T-Rex that takes up most of the middle of the room.

“Yamaguchi is very lucky you didn’t get me a dinosaur themed cake,” Kei snorts, taking in the bones once more before starting to move around the room. What surprises him most is how Hinata continues to follow him around the room.

He’s nosy, constantly asking questions of Kei. The names of dinosaurs, or asking why they looked a certain way. Or if when two of them got in a fight which would win, or even pointing at a dinosaur and asking, ‘would that one eat me?’.

It should annoy Kei. He hates chatter. Hates people speaking for no reason about mindless shit. But here he enjoys showing off, enjoys knowing the answer to every single question Hinata gives him. He even enjoys how Hinata stares at him in awe whenever he spouts out a fact that he knows. It pisses him off, but he can’t help wanting to make Hinata look at him like that again. He shouldn’t want it. It’s dangerous to get reeled in by Hinata.

He is so open about his admiration of everyone he meets that Kei knows Hinata’s awe is something easily achieved. Something not worth celebrating receiving. It doesn’t count when it’s so easy to get. Those are the things he has to remind himself when he feels smug about pulling another excited squeal from Hinata.

What’s more strange is Hinata’s unwavering patience. Even after he runs out of questions, he stands silently next to Kei as the other boy continues to look. Kei knows that he could spend hours in here, though that usually never gets to happen because the people he’s comes with always want to move on before he does. They never asked to, but he can tell by the change in their body language, and Kei never makes them stay longer than they want. But with Hinata, it’s different. He fidgets, yes, and he talks to himself, but both are things he does almost constantly, anyway. It’s refreshing for Kei.

When they’ve done a circle of the room, Kei looks down at Hinata. “We should find the others,” he says, hoping that the unspoken ‘thank you’ is heard. Even if he can’t imagine Hinata reading that deep into anything anyone says. “I’m sure they’re both worried I’ve given you up to the curators to stuff and place in with the other wild animals,” he teases, smirking at the squawk Hinata lets out. They’re back to normal. No need to think about them not arguing. No need to think about the fact that he’d enjoyed spending time with Hinata.

* * *

He doesn’t think of it at all, in fact. Every time the thoughts threaten to fill his brain, he pushes them back down. Keeps them in the corner of his mind where he stuffs all the things he doesn’t want to think about. All the emotions he doesn’t want to feel. It stays there after a while, not entering his thought-stream until a few months later when he receives a text from Hinata.

Or what he presumes to be Hinata. They’ve never swapped numbers, and Kei only knows it’s him from the excessive use of kaomoji’s, and the use of ‘Stingyshima’ in place of his name. He reads over it a few times, at first wondering if it’s all a horrible prank.

_Yamaguchi told me there’s a new dinosaur thing opening in Tokyo_ ヽ (° 〇 °) ﾉ . _We’re dinosaur buddies now, why didn’t you invite me?!_ (` 皿 ´ ＃ ) _You can’t go without me! Yamaguchi said you’re going this weekend so I’m coming with you. Don’t try to argue Stingyshima!!! I know where it is and I’ll find you anyhow!_

Kei wonders if Yamaguchi is asking to lose his life in a tragic ‘accident’.

**Why would I go with you? I didn’t realise you cared so much about dinosaurs, anyway. I didn’t realise there was room for anything in your head with the volleyball you have for a brain.**

He receives a response almost immediately.

ヽ ( `д´*) ノ _Rude! Shittyshima, I’m coming whether you like it or not. The dinosaurs were cool! Besides, I’ll tell everyone you’re a dinosaur nerd if you don’t let me come._

Kei waits a few minutes before replying. He knows not to respond immediately. Unlike some people.

**I suppose I have no choice, then. I’ll be at the train station at 10. If you’re not there, I’ll leave without you.**

All he receives back is _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ and he immediately regrets giving into Hinata. He’d have to plan a second visit without the shrimp in a few weeks so he can actually enjoy the exhibit.

* * *

He doesn’t need to arrange that second visit. He hates to admit it, but he enjoyed going with Hinata more than he would have on his own. It’s ridiculous. Much like usual, Hinata is too loud, he’s obnoxious, and he moves around far too much and far too quickly for him to not annoy Kei. And yet, when they’re in the actual exhibition, he calms a little. He channels that energy into asking Kei questions. Into gasping at every little thing he sees in awe, at every little thing Kei says. They still bicker, because Kei is too snarky not too, and Hinata is so easily riled it up that it’s fun. But the bite has gone from it. It feels like he’s talking with Yamaguchi, or Kuroo. He doesn’t hate it all.

Which is probably why, despite his own disbelief, he starts to spends more time with Hinata. At first, it’s more museums. Hinata invites him to a new one every couple of weeks, insisting that he needs Kei there only for his knowledge of dinosaurs. In reality, half the museums he invites him to don’t even have dinosaurs in them. Not that Kei minds too much. Whilst the dinosaur exhibit is usually his favourite in any museum, it isn’t like he doesn’t enjoy looking at everything else. He’s been to so many that he can even reel off facts and information about exhibits that he doesn’t care for.

So they settle into this new pattern. Museum visits together every few weeks, less if they’re around tournament time. It’s easy, when it’s said like that, for Kei to pretend that nothing else is happening. He doesn’t have to address the way Hinata and him text about other subjects. Besides, it’s always instigated by Hinata, Kei only uses it to pass the time. He also doesn’t have to address the way they spend lunchtimes together, after Yachi and Yamaguchi start dating at the beginning of their second year.

And he definitely doesn’t address how he thinks about Hinata constantly now. He doesn’t need to address it. Hinata is a constant in his life now, in his lunchtimes and volleyball practices and at the weekends. As well as texting him almost constantly when they’re apart. He does not need to acknowledge how much he cares about Hinata, how much he wants to spend time with the other boy, to see him. That is until, after the Inter-High tournament in their second year, when Kei learns about Hinata’s plan to go to Brazil and play beach volleyball.

It’s like a slap in the face to Kei. For a while he has allowed himself to forget the basic truth of his relationship with Hinata. The other boy would always fly out of his reach. He’s always known that Hinata has more natural talent in his tiny body than most of the rest of their team will ever have. He has the drive too, to push himself further, to grow infinitely stronger. Here that means going across the world for two years to play an entirely different sport to improve himself. They’ll be no time for Kei in his volleyball obsessed world. He’ll be tossed to the side, left behind in Hinata’s pursuit to become who he wants to be.

The pain it causes Kei to think about that is almost unbearable. It was stupid, he thinks, to allow himself to feel that emotional connection again. To allow himself to open up to someone when he knows firsthand how much pain that causes.

So he cuts it off. Buries those feelings deep down in the back of his head, squished in with all the other thoughts and feelings he doesn’t allow himself to have. But seeing Hinata, texting him, spending time with him, it all threatens to push those feelings back to the surface. So he stops doing all of it.

Stops spending time with Hinata. He doesn’t reply to his texts. He finds a hidden spot to spend his lunch alone, and he basically stops going to museums all together, unable to separate them from the boy he’d been visiting them with for months. It goes well. The pain and the hurt threatens only to bubble up to the surface when he’s forced to interact with Hinata at practice. When he sees the angry and upset, look that Hinata gives him when Kei catches his eye after practice and practically runs off, pretending that his headphones are too loud for him to hear the calls of his name.

But Hinata doesn’t understand how to suppress his emotions. He doesn’t understand how to leave things alone. So he seeks out Kei, tries to find him between classes, on the weekends at his favourite cafe. He even tries to wait for Kei before practice in the morning. Kei likes to think he’s gotten hiding from Hinata down to a fine art over the next couple of weeks. That is, until Hinata finds his new secret lunch spot. Kei is sure he’s got Yamaguchi to murder for that one.

“Stupidshima!!” He hears him first, the scream of his name loud enough to penetrate the music playing in his headphones, and Kei looks up to find Hinata looming over him. He’s pretty proud that he doesn’t allow himself to seem shocked at all that the other boy has found him here.

“Are you trying to sound an alarm? There’s really no need for you to be so loud, you know?” Kei bites out, barely looking at the other boy in front of him. He can’t, not yet.

“Stingyshima, you idiot! I know you’ve been hiding from me. Don’t lie about it. You’ve stopped texting me, and now you’re spending lunches practically hidden in a bush to get away from me?! Why?” He demands, his hands on his hips in an attempt to be intimidating that Kei has to actively pretend he doesn’t find cute.

“Maybe I was trying to remember what peace and quiet sounds like. Besides, don’t you need to be spending all your time planning for your big trip.” Hinata squints at him, confused. “Brazil.” Kei can hardly say the word with the flare of pain in causes in his chest. He doesn’t mean to mention it. He doesn’t want to expose himself so openly to anyone, especially not Hinata.

Hinata huffs, sitting himself down in front of Kei, but very ready to jump up and tackle him in the other boy tries to run. “Is that what you’re grumpy about, Grumpyshima? I know everyone thinks it’s stupid. That everyone thinks I can learn enough here, but I can’t! I have to go, I want to go! Then I’ll come back and I’ll be so strong I’ll defeat you and Kageyama and Hoshimi and everyone!” Hinata exclaims, gesturing his arms around himself wildly.

“Why am I on that list, everyone already knows you’re better than me?”

Hinata slaps his leg, letting out a loud squawk of indignation, “idiot, we’re competition. You’ve got everything I don’t. Height, game sense, you’re super cool and smart and funny, but I won’t lose.”

Kei tries not think about how half those things aren’t even to do with his volleyball skills. “Unless they have a stretching machine in Brazil, I don’t think you’ll get taller than me. Besides, do you really think you’ll be thinking about any of us after being in Brazil for two years?” Stop Kei, you’re projecting, he thinks to himself.

“Idiot. You think I’ll become too cool and great and incredible in Brazil that I’ll forget you? Never! Do you think there are volleyball idiots anywhere in the world that know as much about dinosaurs as you do?” Hinata questions him, though he doesn’t wait for Kei to respond before continuing. “I’m going to go to all the cool museums and take pictures of the dinosaurs for you. Then you’ll come and visit me and we can see them together and I’ll be so good at beach volleyball that we’ll play together and I’ll finally destroy you!” Hinata in his excitement has pushed his face up into Kei’s so they are only centimetres apart.

Kei can’t help himself. Seeing Hinata this happy, this impassioned in his efforts to convince Kei that they will still be friends, that he wants Kei to visit him in Japan, it fills him with far too many feelings for him to think straight. That’s what he blames on him leaning forward, pressing a sweet, chaste kiss to Hinata’s lips. He pulls back almost immediately, hoping that he doesn’t look as flustered as he feels inside.

“You kissed me.” Hinata states, and Kei rolls his eyes at the stupidity of the other boy. What else did he think had happened? Before Kei can snark out some easy quip, Hinata pushes himself into his arms, making them both fall over. Kei’s back smacks against the rough concrete and he thinks someone needs to teach Hinata the meaning of gentle.

“Does this mean you’ll take me on more museum dates? As my boyfriend?” Hinata asks from where he’s looking down at Kei, his cheeks flushing red in embarrassment at what he’s said.

Kei doesn’t stop himself when he leans up to press another sweet kiss to Hinata’s lips before replying.“Yes, but if you try to kiss me whilst I’m looking at the dinosaur fossils, I’ll dump you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not super happy with the second half of this but I still wanted to finish this. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please leave a kudos or even a comment if you'd like!


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